Mentalrobics™

You exercise your body to stay physically in shape, so why shouldn't you exercise your brain to stay mentally fit? With these daily exercises you will learn how to flex your mind, improve your creativity and boost your memory. As with any exercise, repetition is necessary for you to see improvement, so pick your favorite exercises from our daily suggestions and repeat them as desired. Try to do some mentalrobics every single day!

Of the five senses, humans use their sense of sight the most. Sometimes we can become so dependent on our eyes that we hardly pay any attention to our other senses. One way to encourage your mind to pay attention to the other senses is to close your eyes. Here are a couple activities that you can do with your eyes closed.

Take a Shower
Getting the water temperature just right, finding the shampoo, and toweling off are simple tasks that become difficult when you cant see what you are doing.

Get Dressed
Naturally, you won't be able to see colors with your eyes shut, so you'll have to pick out a matching outfit by feel.

In doing these exercises you well probably notice things that you never noticed before when you could rely on sight. For example, you may notice the different shapes of the bottles in the shower. Focusing your attention on your other senses will improve your memory by teaching you how to create strong associations for things that you want to remember.

Meditation is a contemplative practice that calms or focuses the mind. Although meditation is commonly associated with Eastern religions, it is practiced in nearly every religion and is frequently used outside of the religion context for personal development and relaxation.

Relaxation Response and Progressive Muscle Relaxation are examples of non-religious meditations used to calm the mind and body. There are many different types of formalized meditations that follow a specific routine. Beginners will probably find these easier to start with because there are rules to follow. Once you become adept at focusing your mind, you can easily create your own routines.

A basic goal of meditation is to reach a mental state where your mind is free of thoughts. Beginners will probably find it difficult to meditate for more than a few minutes without having distracting thoughts entire their minds, but with practice and determination it is possible to silence the mind.

One technique used to help quiet the mind is to turn your attention to a single object, such as your breathing. Breath awareness and breath counting is used in many meditations. Some people find it helpful to have a mantra, which is a sound, word or phrase that you can repeat to yourself. In the Relaxation Response meditation, the word "one" is used as a mantra.

If you want to start meditating to reduce stress or for some other reason, it is advisable to pick one or two routines and stick with them. Set aside 15-20 minutes every day to practice and you will quickly improve.

Criticism is a comment or judgment made to find fault in an idea. This can be bad for creativity, especially when it comes from a boss or a spouse. When someone produces a new idea, it is likely that they are already a little insecure about it. Criticism often feels like a personal attack. As a result, most people become defensive when criticized and will stubbornly defend their idea even if the criticism has merit.

Criticism has no place in a brainstorm, but once you have selected an idea to pursue, it is a valuable tool. Accepting criticism and using it to improve your ideas are critical to producing quality solutions. Remember that the criticism is not about you; it is about the idea. Try to divorce yourself from your idea and pretend that it just fell out of the sky. This will help you look at it objectively and recognize if the criticism is valid.

Avoid being defensive. Instead, ask lots of clarifying questions and find out what changes the critic would make. Be sure to refer back to the goals so that you aren't solving problems that you do not need to solve. Once you fully understand what the critic is trying to say, you can decide if they have any validity.

A supportive environment that gives good criticism and encourages wild ideas will help people become more comfortable with creativity.